Get Email Updates

The Dispatch E-Edition

All current subscribers have full access to Digital D, which includes the E-Edition and
unlimited premium content on Dispatch.com, BuckeyeXtra.com, BlueJacketsXtra.com and
DispatchPolitics.com.
Subscribe
today!

View SlideshowRequest to buy this photoEfrem Lukatsky | Associated PressOpposition leader Vitali Klitschko, center, is attacked and sprayed with a fire extinguisher as he tries to stop a clash with police.

By Maria DanilovaAssociated Press • Monday January 20, 2014 8:23 AM

KIEV, Ukraine — Anti-government protests in Ukraine’s capital escalated into fiery street
battles with police yesterday as thousands of demonstrators hurled rocks and firebombs to set
police vehicles ablaze. Dozens of officers and protesters were injured.

Police responded with stun grenades, tear gas and water cannons, but they were outnumbered by
the protesters. Many of the riot police held their shields over their heads to protect themselves
from the projectiles thrown by demonstrators on the other side of a cordon of buses.

The violence was a sharp escalation of Ukraine’s two-month political crisis, which has brought
round-the-clock protest gatherings but had been largely peaceful.

Opposition leader Vitali Klitschko tried to persuade demonstrators to stop their unrest, but he
failed and was sprayed by a fire extinguisher in the process. Klitschko later traveled to President
Viktor Yanukovych’s suburban residence and said that Yanukovych has promised to create a commission
to settle the crisis. Another opposition leader, Arseniy Yatsenyuk, said that Yanukovych had called
him to offer negotiations.

The U.S. Embassy called for an end to the violence, saying: “We urge calm, and call on all sides
to cease any acts provoking or resulting in violence.”

The crisis erupted in November after Yanukovych’s decision to freeze ties with the European
Union and seek a huge bailout from Russia. The decision sparked protests, which increased in size
and determination after police twice violently dispersed demonstrators.

Anger rose substantially after Yanukovych signed an array of laws last week severely limiting
protests and banning the wearing of helmets and gas masks.

Many of yesterday’s demonstrators wore hard hats and masks in defiance of the new laws. They set
several police buses on fire, and some chased and beat officers.

Police responded with tear gas and stun grenades. Water cannons also were fired at the
protesters in the subfreezing weather, but the clashes continued.

The harsh new laws brought a crowd of tens of thousands to the protest at Kiev’s central square
yesterday. Although most of the protesters remained on the square, a group of radicals marched
toward a police cordon several hundred yards away that blocked an area housing government offices.
They began attacking riot police with sticks to push their way toward Ukraine’s parliament
building. The crowd then swelled to thousands.

The Interior Ministry said more than 70 police officers were injured, four of them seriously;
there were no immediate count of injured protesters.

The ministry also said a criminal case had been opened on charges of mass disorder; convictions
under that charge could bring prison sentences of 15 years.

Klitschko’s top allies, who stood by his side at the peaceful rally earlier in the day, didn’t
show up at the site of the clashes for most of the day. Instead, they called for a peaceful means
of protest from nearby Independence Square and condemned the clashes.

“No power in the country is worth losing at least one human life,” Yatsenyuk said from the stage
at the central square as the clashes continued late into the evening a few hundred yards away. “
That is why I condemn the violence that took place just now.”

Scores of opposition leaders and journalists have been attacked, harassed and prosecuted since
the anti-government protests started on Nov. 21.

Yanukovych’s government has ignored previous demands made by the opposition.

Opposition leaders denounced Yanukovych’s legislation as unconstitutional and called for the
formation of parallel governing structures in the country.